Jerome Starkey

Fascinating end to April 26, with the brilliant @jeromestarkey joining Prince Harry on his visit to Ukraine to witness the incredible work of @thehalotrust Inspiring to witness such dedication, resilience, and impact on the ground in Kyiv. The Prince also marked 10 years since Invictus, his charity for wounded veterans, came to the Ukraine. #princeharry #royal #halotrust #ukraine #invictus

🇺🇦 A first for me – I was in Ukraine with Prince Harry last week 💥 There was one big surprise. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but he called out Putin (over systemic, planned war crimes), he called out Trump for lack of global leadership and he urged the world to not grow numb to the horrors of Ukraine. He said - quite rightly - that democracy and western values are at stake. What’s not to like? Anyone who has seen the Kremlin’s carnage up close must agree. 🦾 He also marked 10 years since Invictus – his charity for wounded veterans – came to Ukraine. 🪖 He took on the torch of his mother’s landmines legacy – supporting Halo Trust mine clearance team near Bucha. 🙏 He paid homage to the civilians murdered in the Bucha Massacre – on of the earliest and most shocking Russian war crimes which galvanised Ukraine’s will to fight. The real surprise came on Twitter. The level of vitriol aimed his way (in comments under our coverage). Including the most pathetic and laughable nonsense that somehow this was timed to eclipse his nephew’s 8th birthday. I’m not a royal correspondent. I cover defence. In defence at least most of the commentators (and twitter mob) most of the time have some basic knowledge and interest. #Ukraine #PrinceHarry #WarInUkraine #buchamassacre #PutinIsAWarCrimimal @thehalotrust @weareinvictusgames

🇺🇦 This is fighting spirit 💪 Happy Christmas everyone. This is the price of defending Ukraine. These men were all ordinary civilians before the full scale invasion. Now they must learn to live without limbs and friends lost on the battlefield. In order… Cpl Volodymyr, 41, a map maker before the war, trained in Britain on Op Interflex, lost both feet to a land mine in Sumy in April. Pte Kostyantyn, 50, a gas engineer before the war, lost his leg to an FPV drone in June. Snr Lt Oleksandr, 42, an IT worker before the war, lost his foot to a land mine in October. Pte Sviatoslav, 35, a shop assistant before the war, lost his leg to a land mine – and was stranded for nine days before he could get treatment in October. Sgt Volodymyr, 46, a businessman before the war, lost his leg in an artillery strike in March. I met them at a rehab hospital supported by British military medics in Ukraine. #FightingSpirit #WoundedWarrior #Amputee #CombatVeteran #Veteran

🇺🇦 This woman is AMAZING! Olena. A mother. A soldier. A wife. A survivor. A triple amputee with “no regrets,” a ready laugh and indomitable spirit. She said: “If not me, then who?” Like this please to show her support. Write her a message in the comments. She’ll see it. It doesn’t mean you like her wounds, or the f*ckw!t tyrant who started this war. But because people like Olena are few and far between. Because she is inspiring. Ukraine is inspiring. She is 45 years old. She volunteered to fight on the third day of the war after a relative was paralysed in a Russian missile strike on her home. She has served as a cook, a clerk, a combat medic and most recently a target spotter. She was horrifically injured by a Russian FPV drone near Kupiansk. It got underneath anti-drone net. Miraculously she has survived. She talked of rejoining her unit but joked with a nod to her missing limbs, “I’m not sure how my commander will react.” I asked her what she thought of the peace talks. I had thought she might crave peace at any price. I thought she’d want an end to injures like hers. But she said: “I have one question: What did they all die for if we give in to Russia.” And a message to Putin? She said: “You couldn’t print it.” 📸 I shared the last picture because it was a bit of a scrum when we met her. An intrusion of cameras, doctors and translators all at once. But Olena seemed unfazed. She welcomed us. She totally owned the interview which she peppered with jokes and smiles. She told us her story. And she left us all deeply impressed and permanently changed, for the better. #StopRussia #WoundedWarrior #Invincible #weareukraine #hospital #warwounds #projectrenovator #invictus #OnAssignment #Leica #leicamd #zeisscameralenses #rehab #rehabilitation #projectrenovator #renovator #amputee #tripleamputee #commandospirit #cheerfulnessinthefaceofadversity

🇺🇦 Captain Dima, 25, on a brief break from work on a Patriot air defence battery. He was a student before the war. Lovely guy, but he couldn’t tell me much. Apart from the fact he had been very busy. Since I took this photo (on Oct 18) Russia has fired more than 7,000 missiles and drones at Ukraine. SEVEN THOUSAND 🚀 Even the smallest Shaheed / Geran decoys (without explosive warheads) are still like flying motorbikes hurtling into people’s homes. The biggest missiles feel like they can gut whole city blocks. It is madness. Russia’s madness. If Putin wanted peace he could stop fighting yesterday. Keep that in mind over thanksgiving if we hear more about Donald Trump’s deadline for Kyiv to accept Russia’s terms. I admire the urgency. I’m appalled at the bias. #StopRussia #closethesky #warinukraine #patriotmissile #patriot #airdefence #gbad #airdefense #leicamd #35mm #portrait #camoflauge #onassignment #soldier #shadows

🇺🇦 Russia’s gift to Ukraine. Thick black smoke visible for miles (and probably from space). Infrastructure burning. An oil depot hit by drones. But don’t worry, Trump’s got a plan. It’s a Russian plan. Written by the Kremlin’s banker. Delivered in Miami to Donald Trump’s golfing partner and presented to Kyiv like a fait accompli with an ultimatum to sign by Thursday. It gives Moscow almost everything – land the size of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Amnesty for war crimes. A cap on Ukraine’s armed forces and a ban on joining Nato. Ukraine has replied with a counter offer. (This pic is a few weeks old, but I won’t say when or where it was taken to avoid helping Moscow’s battle damage assessment) #Ukraine #Russia #AirStrike #dronestrike #smoke #sunflowers #sunflowersofinstagram #farmland #stoprussia #stoprussianaggression #blitz #blitzspirit

More F35s 💥 Too good not to share. 💸 15 planes on the flight deck 🟰 £1.5bn worth of aeroplanes. That’s basically half an aircraft carrier. Each planes costs about a £100 million. They are 5th generation stealth fighter jets. Single engine, single pilot. Flown (in the UK) by the RAF and Royal Navy. These are the F-35B variants, which are “short take off vertical landing” – designed for aircraft carriers. They hardly need any runway to launch and they land vertically like the old Harrier jump jets. But for all the whizz bag tech, they are astronomically expensive and don’t have the missiles they need to hit targets from a “safe distance”. The new Spear 3 missile isn’t due in service until the 2030s. And the MoD has had to tripled its total estimate of the programme’s whole life cost from £18bn to £57bn. Repairs on the jets can be painstakingly slow and complicated because the stealth paint and construction means panels cannot simply be removed to access the guts. The UK is facing a crippling shortage of pilots (due to a disastrous training contract) as well as key engineers, cyber specialists and instructors. So while this looked spectacular, it’s not exactly all plain sailing. The UK should have 47 F-35Bs by the end of 2025. (One crashed into the Med in 2021 after someone left a rain cover on an engine before take off). Otherwise it would be 48. Over half of them (24) were embarked on Prince of Wales. The UK has pledged buy 138 from Lockheed (but orders are normally trimmed down to save cash) and Labour have said they want some F-35As – the normal runway version – because they want a jet carry air launched nukes. #F35 #F35B #fighter #fighterjet #jet #jetaircraft #f35lightning #planespotter #aviation #avgeek #combataircraft #aircraftcarrier #HMSPrinceofWales #royalnavy #Navy #Naval #navalaviation #iphone #iphone15 #onassignment #bayofnaples #italy

Swipe right for F-35s 💥 This was pretty epic: 15 of the UK’s F-35B Lightning jets stacked on the flight deck of HMS Prince of Wales. 🙏 Thank you to the Navy and the CSG crew for having me onboard. One of the most senior officers described their carrier strike group as a “steel ballet” of warships, fighter jets, helicopters, support ships, a submarine and drones. Beautiful. There were 24 fighter jets on board – so nine more in the hangar, with helicopters and drones. (Which, sadly, makes it out of bounds for cocktail parties 🤷‍♂️). They have sailed some 40,000 miles since they left Portsmouth eight months ago. The average age of the 800 strong crew (on the carrier) is about 22. Roughly one in three it was their first time at sea. Overall there have been 4,000 crew involved. And they have been to Australia, Japan, India, the Philippines and Viet Nam (to name a few) and they are due back in Portsmouth in good time for Christmas. 😢 The sad thing is most people in Britain have no idea because this was only the third time in eight months that No10 have let UK journalists onboard. (Yes, No10 micro manages these visit decisions). It must be slightly demoralising to be part of something so amazing and have had so little coverage or public awareness back home. Eight months. Two journalists. The Economist in Japan. The Times in the South China Sea. (Oh so popular with sailors’ families). It is daft, daft, daft. Anyway. I hope this helps. Thank you again to our hosts. 🙏 #hmsprinceofwales #csg #aircraftcarrier #carrierstrikegroup #warship #fıghterjet #f35 #f35b #flightdeck #flightdeckview #royalnavy #sailor #airwing #iphone #iphone15 #onassignment #navy #port #Italy #avgeek #aviation #planespotters #617squadron #RAF #royalairforce #bayofnaples #bravozulu

⚓️ Britain’s best defended airfield? (Arguably, yes). Or a £3.2bn juicy target to get sunk by missiles and drones in the event of a peer-on-peer conflict? This is HMS Prince of Wales at anchor in the Bay of Naples. She is the biggest and most expensive ship ever build for the Royal Navy (marginally bigger than sister ship Queen Elizabeth). And she is on her way home after eight months at sea and a 40,000 mile voyage to Australia, Japan and back. Apparently, in all the war games and training serials along those 40,000 miles she didn’t suffer a single hit from the “Red Teams” playing enemy. Nor did any of her escort ships. (This did make me ask if the training was hard enough). That wasn’t how the Falklands went. Nonetheless, it is certainly true that the carriers are the only UK “military airfields” that have proper air defence. It comes from their escort destroyers. The UK has no Iron Dome, no long range air defence like Patriot. It has medium range Sky Sabre. The Royal Navy owns Britain’s most advanced missile defences on the Type 45 destroyers. They proved their worth in Yemen by shooting down Houthi missiles and drones. And one always sails with the carriers. (One normally sails to London when there are big events with heads of state, like the Olympics and the late Queen’s funeral). Whatever your take on their military worth, they certainly look impressive – and they were turning plenty of heads along the harbour promenade on Naples. #RoyalNavy #Warship #Aircraftcarrier #CSG25 #Highmast #CarrierStrike #WarshipCam #Naples #Napoli #Italy #BayofNaples

🇺🇦 Glorious Kharkiv. Repelled a Russian tank assault on the first day of the war. Endured years of rocket, shell and missile bombardments. Now it’s drones and power blackouts. Russia’s deadly Shaheds missed a military target and hit a children’s nursery this week. Imagine getting that call as a parent. Miraculously, all 38 toddlers and teachers survived because they were cowering in the basement – like you’re supposed to during an air raid siren. But the sirens wail so often it is almost impossible to heed their warnings. More often than not people simply carry on. Like the gardeners sweeping up leaves in the park. 💪🍁 Heroes in a little way. PS The tank is a British MkV used at the tail end of World War One the by both sides of Russia’s civil war. (Gifted to the White Russians then captured by the Red Army). It’s on display at the city museum. #WarInUkraine #StopRussia #StopPutin #Autumn #CityLife #EverdayUkraine #everydaykharkiv #mainbattletank #MarkV #StreetPhotography #blackout #powercut #leica #onassignment #leicamd

🇺🇦 It really feels like autumn here, in more ways than the weather. But there’s hope too. And grim determination, so that kids like this one can inherit their own country without being slain at 18 (or 23) as a conscript. This was a sunset stroll in Dnipro, along the banks of the river that bisects Ukraine. Our phones buzz every few minutes with news of the latest air alert, but the cities (on this trip) are quieter than I remember. It’s a mercy of sorts. But the statistics tell a different story. Some 4,072 missiles and rockets during a two week window in July. Then 823 on Sept 7. Another all-out bid to destroy Ukraine’s national grid. #StopRussia #StopPutin #WarInUkraine #Autumn #Rainbow ##Waterfall #Monastery #Church #Ukraine #Dnipro #OnAssignment #Leica #LeicaMD

🇺🇦 💥 1. Take one flatbed truck, some bits from old fighter jets (Hawks, Jaguars or Tornados will do) and a couple of ASRAAM air-to-air missiles approaching their use by date. 2. Add a bucket load of urgency and a sprinkling of ingenuity. 3. Mix for four months with help from the RAF Air & Space Warfare team. The result is the British-made Raven air defence system. We had a very rare opportunity to see a Raven in the field and to meet some of its crew. This one, and a dozen like it, have shot down hundreds upon hundreds of Russian drones and rockets, according to both 🇺🇦 and 🇬🇧 officials. And in a pleasing double blow to Moscow, around half of the missiles supplied so far have been paid for with interest seized from frozen 🇷🇺 assets. The crew said they were hitting c.90% of their targets since July – when Russia massively ramped up its nightly drone and missile strikes. Their colleagues shared the video 🎥 The first of these were delivered in 2023 as part of Britain’s Operation Kindred military aid to Ukraine. In a whiplash moment for the Ministry of Defence it went from concept to delivery in four months. But despite its obvious successes, each missile costs around £200,000 which is ten times as much as the Shahed drones it is mostly used to shoot down. (If Trump gave Ukraine Tomahawks or similar they might be able to destroy Russia’s Shahed factory). The UK and Ukraine are due to start building a new anti-Shahed weapon - an interceptor drone called Octopus - that costs around £2000, or a tenth of a Shahed. Trump reportedly told Zelensky that Ukraine would be crushed unless he caved into Putin’s demands for land. It’s BS. Ukraine is suffering badly. It is being ground down slowly and painfully on the frontlines and winded every night with the massive air strikes on homes, factories and power stations. But it is not being crushed. The grinding is also hurting Russia & without Trump’s support it would be hurting Putin even more. #StopRussia #CloseTheSkies #AirDefence #surfacetoairmissile #asraam #ravenairdefence #warinukraine #opkindred #shaheddrone #onassignment #leicamd